


Scared

by CaptainKittah



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 06:12:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14847302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainKittah/pseuds/CaptainKittah
Summary: He’s always been scared, but now? He can handle it.





	Scared

He was scared, the first time he held Steve through a coughing fit. A cigarette held up to his lips, calming presses at a bent over back as the blond struggles to not throw up a lung. James Buchanan Barnes would never call himself brave for helping his friend out, not like the snarks their neighbors made with him ‘dealing with such a sick boy’ before they got to know Steve. 

Anyone who knew Steve would see the brightest mind and a quick temperament that always burned in his eyes, gritted teeth as he fights with every part of him. Steve is brave, but he’s still polite when it boils down to it, always an upstanding citizen in most things. He wouldn’t hesitate to break rules if he doesn’t believe in them, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong for it, he just sees what it should be, and he wants to fix it. 

Bucky is gone for him. He realizes it as he sees the bloody napkins that haunt his dreams at night, wondering when the day would be when although Steve’s fighting spirit would be there—his body doesn’t always agree with that. He realizes it every time he sees Steve’s shaky hands fumble for a pencil and the steady bite of his lip and furrow of his brow when a line wasn’t drawing quite right. He’s determined to keep it to himself as he goes out at night, pink lipstick staining at his neck but never further down, blabbing easily to Steve as he slides in beside him on nights that freeze the porcelain skin and cause shudders to rack his body. 

“It’s okay, Buck,” Steve would say, eyes flaming with determination and a smile filled with unsaid pain creased over his lips. “I’ve been through worse, I can handle it.”

Bucky knows he can. He knows that Steve’s hands will stop shaking when finally calm settles across his body when Steve’s asleep, and when they’re curled into fists and his lip is bloody and split open. He can handle whatever the world throws at him, he wants to change it for the better. He slips the form he received, stating his date when he ships out, underneath the mattress and prays that Steve won’t find it. He’s already trying to enlist, even with the number of ailments that constantly plague his body, wanting to make it right and fight with the rest of them.

He can’t let Steve know, but he finds out anyway as soon as he has to arrive in uniform, pulling Steve out of a scrap. He’s careful to hide his concern, pulling Steve in a rough shoulder hold and smiling easily as he says they’re going to the future. A future that Bucky never thought would be able to happen, where Steve gets big and Bucky remains small and scared of what the world can do to him, but he doesn’t need him anymore.

Steve can really handle himself now.

Bucky’s not bitter, he’s not bitter about when Steve looks at Agent Carter, he can’t find it in him to be anything but happy that Steve found someone that could match his wit with their own. It doesn’t shock him when Steve appears by his side, cheeks flushed high and relishes in the flush that grows darker as he asks if he’s keeping the uniform. 

Steve can handle this.

Bucky keeps repeating that to himself as he falls off the train, Steve’s hand slipping before he catches himself but unable to catch him. The pain doesn’t hurt nearly as much as the expression on his reddened face, sobbing as Bucky falls.

Steve. 

It’s a word that he recognizes ocassionally, but it’s not enough to have a connection in his mind. He shoulders his weapon, chest heaving as he passes the machine that forced his memories away, rubbing at his shoulder before blanking his expression and obeying all orders directed to him. 

Captain America. 

His mission? Originally, it was to protect. He remembers that much, as he faces off against the blond. He squints as he realizes in combat that he’s trying to get through to him, but shakes his head. He responds accordingly, until his mission keeps repeating the phrase that is said to be his name. 

Inside, Bucky’s screaming. 

Outside, the asset is unable to process what fear just gripped him as he realizes what’s happening, what this feeling that’s rolling in his mind and spreading through his body is. Steve falls, but the asset can’t help and reach out for him, following him down and dragging him out of the water. 

His arm’s out of commission, but who’s to say?

It’s a while before he sees him again. He knows who he is, why he’s there, but he doesn’t know how to face him. 

It’s hard to see Steve want to become who he was again, but that fighting spirit is still there. Even now, a warmth spreads across Bucky’s chest as soon as his eyes lock onto Steve’s. He knows realistically they cannot run away together, but in this moment—he diverges from his plan. He takes Steve’s widened eyes into account as he grabs his hand and tugs him elsewhere, into a tiny shop where he grabs plums and ducks his head as soon as he realizes what’s happening. Shaking his head, he looks at Steve and murmurs hoarsely, “We have to leave, go somewhere else.”

“It’s not your fault,” Is the only thing Steve can stutter out, before being pulled again by Bucky and settling in the knowledge of being wanted by his best friend—his comfort, his surroundings, and he does his best to give it to him.

He ends up attacked anyway. He didn’t do it, it’s proved, but he did do one thing. The reaction, the backlash, completely reasonable, but he’s moved to Wakanda and this is a grateful honor and he’s happy that he made friends with the young girl that managed to remove these swirling mind emotions. Steve skypes him, sometimes, and he can’t help but blurt out the fact that he loves him. He realizes it all over again, even after everything that happened, and he explains quietly that he’ll never be the same Bucky he had.

Steve smiles.

Bucky knows that this time, he’s the one who can handle this.


End file.
